Barton
Barton is a main character in Yocun's Story, serving as a guardian to the summoner Yocun. Before Yocun's Story Barton was born and raised in Macalania, where he knew of Yocun, but never spoke to her when they were younger. He joined the Crusaders when he turned eighteen, leading to a rocky relationship with his younger sister Kaley, who was forced to stay home and care for their elderly mother and was never given the opportunity to leave Macalania. While in the Crusaders, Barton managed to pass basic training with one of the lowest possible scores, never having killed a fiend in his life. For this reason, he was placed in a support position in a regimen of troops under Yocun. Here, he developed a crush on his platoon leader that he kept to himself. When Yocun announced her decision to leave the Crusaders to become a summoner, Barton offered his services as a guardian, as did every one else in the same platoon. Barton felt his chances were slim until overhearing a conversation between Father Zolono and a couple of other priest, who were discussing the possibility of canceling Yocun's training due to her refusal to learn white magic. Barton asked if it were possible for a guardian to be the white mage of the party, which they agreed to. Barton secretly took leave from the Crusaders to study white magic at Macalania Temple, where he proved to be slightly more competent than with a blade. As soon as the priests deemed him knowledgeable enough, Barton revealed to Yocun about their plans to cancel her pilgrimage and that her only choice was to accept him as her guardian. Yocun accepted immediately. Yocun's Story On the day their journey began, Yocun was still training outside the Sunken Cave and Barton was waiting to take her to the Calm Lands, where the Crusaders awaited them to send them off on their pilgrimage. Eventually, Barton got her attention, and, after waiting patiently through her story of the Sunken Cave, managed to bring her to the Calm Lands, were the Crusaders greeted them with fanfare. Yocun spoke to the Crusaders and introduced Barton as her guardian, as well as Silva. As Yocun spoke with Silva, Barton spoke with another Crusader until Yocun told him to go out into the clearing without saying why. After a few minutes, her decided to return to the group until he realized he had been sent out as bait to lure out a sinspawn when it attacked. Yocun and Silva fought it back, but Maldus, Maester Dammen's adviser, held the Crusaders back, forcing Yocun and party to deal with the matter themselves. Barton followed orders dutifully, although very shakily and scared. Barton healed the sinspawn's hand so Silva could retrieve her spear and kept behind the girls until they took down the sinspawn. Barton boasted about his team's strength, but Maldus ridiculed their recklessness. Ignoring him, the pilgrimage began into the Macalania Woods, where the team learned more about each other. Specifically, Barton learned that Silva was going to be a pain in the neck since she loved to give long-winded speeches about trivial topics, like the origin and research into fiends. Barton didn't like seeming intellectually inferior, but got his dignity back when he successfully came up with a way to eliminate a Blue Element with a Lightning Marble. The team arrived in Lake Macalania, only to find the temple doors frozen. with the window open, Yocun had Silva impale the side of the temple so she could slide in. Eventually, the door was defrosted and the guardians came in through the front door to find that the brat Gillespie was the one responsible after an argument with Zolono. Gillespie remembered Barton as the guy with the funny-looking beard, and Barton took offense. Barton and Silva was given the responsibility of cleaning up Gillespie's mess when Yocun relieved her of it. The next morning, the summoner party entered the cloister of trials and Barton was openly vocal against following the rules of the cloister when it appeared to put Yocun in danger. Silva convinced her their was no other way and with Yocun secluded, Barton and Silva, communicating through Yocun, managed to place the Macalania Spheres in the right place in two different parts of the cloister and the three proceeded into the antechamber where Gillespie awaited them. Yocun said nothing as she entered the Chamber of the Fayth, but Barton was visibility angered and shocked that the brat had broken Yevon law. Silva explained to Barton that Gillespie's rationale was that Yocun would have to take her on a guardian in order to protect her. Barton became even more angry at this, but eventually accepted it as inevitable. Yocun exited, having received Shiva, and the trio exited. Barton was shocked to find that Yocun did not protect Gillespie when Zolono initially took her away for punishment. He and Silva followed as Yocun took the villagers for an aeon demonstration, which consisted of retrieving Silva's spear after Barton embarrassed himself trying to climb the temple himself. Barton came down to the village to find his embittered sister Kaley complain that Barton was on the journey she should have been on, since she considered herself more apt for travel them he, and even ridiculed him for being the team's white mage. Yocun, however, defended him. Silva convinced Barton to return to the temple and find out where Gillespie was, since it still bothered her that Yocun didn't protect her. Barton distracted Zolono while Silva searched for Gillespie, but her search came up empty. Yocun announced that it was time to leave and Kaley noted that Barton hadn't even seen their mother, but quickly added that it was for the best since her memory was so far-gone that she didn't even remember him. She bid him good luck. Silva said she had a "theory" as to where Gillespie was, and she was right to find her waiting for them. Yocun added her to the party and they continued on until a creepy-looking Maldus blocked their party. A fight ensued and Barton kept a constant NulFrost on either Yocun or Silva as they fought, mainly to protect themselves from Maldus' swift attacks and lack of loss in stamina until he disappeared in a block of ice. O'aka XX, a merchant how saw the entire battle, was asked to report everything he saw to Maester Dammen. O'aka accompanied the group through the Macalania woods until an off-hand comment by Silva offended Gillespie to the point she she shouted and ran off. Yocun went after her and when the others caught up, they found that vines from a sinspawn had attacked them. They agreed that the sinspawn had to be taken down and O'aka led them to a circular location where Gillespie agreed to be the bait. Barton waited in the trees with Silva, who answered all of his questions pertaining to fiends and pyreflies until she politely told him to stick to white magic. One vine attacked Gillespie and Barton quickly threw up a protect shield to stun the vine, but was too late to do anything he turned around and found that the other vine had unexpectedly taken Silva. Barton was ordered to stay with Gillespie while the others followed. Barton continued to protect Gillespie until she finally burned the vine into the pyreflies. They rejoined the others and Barton immediately took to the injured Silva, leaning against a tree, finding that the vine had cut up her midsection and infected her with poison. Barton immediately tried an Esuna spell, but the spell was not working and the poison was spreading. Unwillingly, Barton accepted and antidote from the merchant and injected her.The poison appeared to immediately recede and Barton kept a constant cure spell on her while Yocun, Gillespie, and Shiva took care of the sinspawn. Once the danger was over and Silva was cured, the group continued on, a little broken from their errors and mistakes, especially Barton for failing the Esuna. They reached the woods' end and bid goodbye to O'aka before going into the Thunder Plains. Gillespie ran out into the rain without thinking and Barton was the first to severely reprimand her for her recklessness. when she suggested he throw a NulShock on her, her complained that his magic wasn't for her enjoyment, and this caused Gillespie to tantrum and Barton run ahead of the group and go into the Crusader's lodge at its center before them, leading him into a conversation with Chocobo Knights troop commander Kiltia, whose voice and rich girl mannerisms were worse than the storm. Once the others arrived, Barton left them with Kiltia and went to bed. The next morning, Barton woke Gillespie, leading to another tantrum and argument which Yocun decided to rectify with hard training. Barton was ordered to learn how to throw up a NulShock on more than one person at the same time, on both Gillespie and a Larva fiend. Things got complicated when more fiends joined the fray and Barton had to constantly had to transfer the NulShock onto Yocun as well, but eventually, all the fiends were defeated and the team joined up with Silva, who told them that the Guado were not letting her in and that they would have to wait. Abilities Barton is a traditional white mage, having demonstrated the following abilities: *Cure (Apprentice) *NulTide (Deadline) *Shell (Deadline) *NulFrost (Escape) *Protect (Vines) *NulShock (Practice) Category:Characters Category:Living characters Category:Humans Category:Yocun's Story characters